Posts Tagged ‘ISM’

On Sunday night, after not being able to unload at the Port of Oakland over the weekend, the ZIM Shanghai decided to head to the friendlier Port of Los Angeles, where BDS protests are ignored and ZIM ships are unload, unhindered.

The ship will arrive there Tuesday.

On Saturday, ILWU 10 and 34 released a statement claiming they are not involved in the BDS protest against unloading Israeli owned ZIM ships at the Port of Oakland, and that their workers were physically threatened by the BDS protesters. They claim their leadership and management have no role in organizing the conflict.

ILWU statement on blockage of Zim vessel by protesters at Port of Oakland, Sept. 27, 2014:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA: At 6:00 PM Saturday, ILWU Local 10 and 34 represented longshoremen and clerks dispatched to work the vessel ZIM Shanghai at SSA’s Oakland California Terminal were met with hostile demonstrators, effectively blocking all access to the terminal. Longshoremen and Clerks trying to report to work were threatened physically at some points of ingress and their personal vehicles were physically blocked. As such, all personnel stood-by outside of the demonstration perimeters for health and safety purposes. At approximately 8 PM SSA released all personnel from work.

As far as the union can ascertain, the protests are organized by a coalition of individuals and organizations that plan events and create action alerts under the name of “Block the Boat for Gaza” online.

The ILWU is not among the groups organizing the protests, and the leadership and membership of the ILWU have taken no position on the Israel/Gaza conflict.

The union released the statement after claims arose that some in their leadership were using the BDS protest to bolster their contract negotiating position with the Port. ILWU 10 workers are currently working without contracts.

The Port of Oakland is also the only port in the United States where BDS protesters have been able to intimidate and physically threaten the Longshoremen into not working.

To their credit, some Longshoremen expressed their anger at the BDS protesters this week, cursing them, and one worker even tried to run past the protesters in their car through a back gate to try to get to work.

Members of the virulently anti-Israel ISM organization were also spotted at the BDS protest.

If union leaders were trying to use the protesters as part of their negotiations, as some claim, it appears they overplayed their hand.

The BDS protesters are looking at this as victory, but in reality, there are only losers in Oakland.

ZIM may not call on the Port of Oakland again, certainly not until the ILWU 10 has a contract and guarantees to unload ZIM ships. Other shipping companies wary of the port’s unreliability may also consider the same.

With an estimated 150 ZIM visits a year, that’s a lot of business and perhaps even jobs for the City of Oakland to lose.

Rachel Corrie’s family and friends have done a great job portraying her as a peaceful innocent killed by an immoral violent IDF, but the truth is that Corrie came to Israel to support Arab terrorists whose aim is to murder innocent people like myself, my family, neighbors and friends. She may not have converted to Islam and done military/terrorist training, but if she hadn’t accidentally been killed for getting in the way of Israeli soldiers policing a riot, who knows…

Last Friday, my husband and I got a real kick out of a BBC report about the upgrading of the danger alert in Britain for a possible/probable Arab terror attack in England. It’s not like we are in favor of attacking the British G-d forbid, but we thought their terror of Arab terrorism very humorous. It is especially ironic that the British can so easily see the dangers when it comes to their own country, but are completely blind to the dangers to the State of Israel. Sarah Honig also finds it interesting that the British are waking up:

The heart of any feeling human being must go out to the shaken Brits. They have duly earned our most compassionate commiseration. Out of the blue they were suddenly confronted, most unpleasantly, with the information that American journalist James Foley had been beheaded by a born and bred Londoner. Ouch! Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary is a 23-year-old London rapper who left his family’s $1 million home a year ago to fight with the Islamic State extremists. NY Daily News British politicians and security forces, just like the Americans and others, are ideologically blinded to the connection of ISIS to Hamas and, even like too many Israeli movers and shakers, Hamas to Fatah.

What was freaking out the Brits talking was the fact that many Arab terrorists, like those who cheerfully beheaded Foley, are from good, ordinary middle-class British backgrounds, similar to Rachel Corrie in the states. These terrorists are upgraded versions of the international Left wing groupies who are active in all those faux human rights groups NGOs that come to Israel to support the Arab terrorists, yes like Rachel Corrie.

Connect the dots, please. All of these Muslim Arab terror organizations are connected, and they are the ones who have been terrorizing Israeli civilians and fighting the IDF for decades. They control the PLO, which is the cleaned up diplomatic public relations version that gets sent to international bodies such as the United Nations. Their ultimate aim is to take over the world. Just read their literature and listen to them in Arabic. As the British are starting to realize, they are a serious threat to England in terms of security and basic values.

Dr. Kedar claimed that this is a process known in advance, ending with the disintegration of Europe in its current state. “It is all a result of a European softening, which the Muslims see as a weakness, as if they received Europe in their hands for free. They do not voluntarily blend in, entire neighborhoods perpetuate the culture they brought with them, they are not aware of the language and economy and stay in their enclaves. Once a French man of Algerian descent told me that they didn’t move from Algeria to France, they brought Algeria to France.

According to many, demographics, which is the topic for many studies, is the red light. It points to the path in which the continent is headed – the European birthrate is at a continuous standstill while Muslim immigrants are doubling their rates.

It has been nearly eight hours since the shooting death of Mohammed Karake, a 13-year-old Israeli citizen of “Palestinian” descent, but as of this writing no prominent Palestinian “support” organization has condemned the murder.

For instance, Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (the organization that claimed to have filmed the staged “killing” of two Palestinians during Nakba Day riots last month) features seven news items on its homepage, including stories about the 15-year-old shot killed “as Israeli forces raid West Bank (did we mention the Palestinian was throwing rocks and participating in a violent protest?), and noting that the boy was the sixth Palestinian child to be killed by Israeli forces since the start of the year.

To be fair, the website does mention the abduction of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shayer and Naftali Frenkel, but only as a throwaway line after noting that “the Israeli military continued to use excessive force against civilians in the search for three Israeli teens.”

Another organization, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group of foreign nationals based in Hebron to “document crimes of the occupation” did give more prominent mention to the context of the current IDF sweep – “As the families of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach languish in uncertainty, grieving the disappearance of their three young boys…” – but then continues to claim that “the world watches as their anguish is politically co-opted to provide a veil for indiscriminate Israeli military force imposed on the Palestinian communities in the West Bank. The kidnappings also provide an opportunity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance his right-wing agenda.

“Netanyahu and his ilk have hijacked the legitimate, raw emotional pain of the kidnapping catastrophe and transformed it into the political impetus to section off Hebron from the rest of the world, target the Palestinian Unity Government, deploy intimidation and systematic abuse as a measurement of collective punishment, and strategically empower the settler enterprise in the West Bank,” the group accuses.

And the list goes on. The International Solidarity Movement, the movement that spawned both Rachel Corrie and the Mike’s Place bombers, features reports on “One Palestinian killed, more than 25 injured, another on “Collective punishment in Palestinian,” and a “documentary” about “One month for school children in Hebron (complete with pics). There is also a video, of the infamous Pallywood production of the Palestinians “killed” by Israeli troops last month on Nakba Day.

But as of this writing, nearly eight hours after Mohammed Karake was killed by anti-tank fire over the Syrian border, no Palestinian, pro-Palestinian or “human rights” group has condemned the murder or expressed sympathies with the family.

Could it be related to the fact that the boy didn’t die at the hands of those nasty Jews?

Avidan Ofer is in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital recovering from head and face wounds at the hands of Arab attackers, but a widely-quoted Palestinian Authority media agency has reported that Ofer and several other Jews were the attackers and Arabs were the victims in Monday’s terrorist attack between Kiryat Arba-Hebron and Arad-Be’er Sheba.

Ofer told The Jewish Press the Jews that he and other farmers from Mitzpeh Yair, were plowing their fields when 10 Arabs chased after them and beat them with rods and sticks. The land was clearly part of Mitzpeh Yair. I know that for a fact because it is located two miles from my house in Beit Yatir.

He said he could identify the assailants, who are from an illegally built village a mile to the south and which has grown thanks to assistance from foreign leftists and the European Union.

The IDF confirmed there was a fight” between “settlers and Arabs” and that one Arab and three Jews were “lightly injured.” One of those suffering from light injuries is also in Hadassah Hospital with a set of broken teeth and wounds to his jaw, after having been beaten by the attackers until soldiers responded to a distress call.

A military spokeswoman told The Jewish Press that police arrested seven Jews and two Arabs but could not comment on who initiated the attack. However, since the Jewish farmers were farming their land, the answer is clear.

Why didn’t the Jews defend themselves? After all, they had guns.

The answer is disturbingly simple. Any Jew who shoots a bullet, even in the air, is going to be arrested by the friendly Israeli police, and his weapon will be taken away from him. The Jews use their guns only when they are on the verge of having to say “Shema Yisrael,” the first words of the prayer said before someone dies. That is the extent of Jewish self-defense in most of Judea and Samaria.

The IDF “protects” Jews by tearing up their farms and blindly accepting Arab claims that the land is theirs, and the police dutifully record Jews’ complaints and often end up arrest them after an Arab files a complaint. Arabs almost never are arrested in “routine” assaults and stealing.

The IDF is very aggressive when it comes to talking about protecting Gaza Belt residents from Kassam rockets, even if their actions don’t match their words. When it comes to “settlements,” the military plays down almost every incident except clear murders.

It is a lot easier to pretend there is no trouble with the Arabs. No extra work. Peace and quiet.

So the IDF confirmed their was a “fight.” The government does not want to ruin U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to convince himself that Mahmoud Abbas really wants Jews to stay alive and in peace.

One of the debilitating factors in the efforts of Jews to hold on to any inch of land they can in the southern Hebron Hills is the Palestinian Authority propaganda machine and the silent guns of the Israeli government media folks.

Here is how the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency reported Monday morning’s attack, under the headline “Palestinian farmers clash with settlers in south Hebron hills.”

The report stated, “The clashes occurred after settlers attacked a group of farmers tending their land. Ismail al-Adra said that ten settlers attacked him and several other farmers while they were on their way to tend their fields…. Another farmer, Mousa al-Adra, was also attacked and injured, together with a foreign solidarity activist who was filming the settler attack….Israeli forces arrived at the scene and detained a number of farmers, accusing them of attacking settlers….

“There are several radical Jewish outposts in the south Hebron hills, with settlers regularly attacking local Palestinians with impunity.”

This conflicting report is obviously a lie, even to those who have not taken Journalism 101.

In every Palestinian Authority report of alleged Jewish attacks, some of them true and many of them questionable, the location is noted. Bethlehem-based Ma’an apparently decided not to define the area because it would open it to counter-claims of a confirmed lie. If, as the article states, Jews attacked the Arabs who were “tending their land,” where was that land? The answer is clear. “Their” land was in Mitzpeh Yair, just like all of the land in Judea and Samaria is “their” land.

An IDF military court decided to go with a modified plea bargain agreement for Lt. Colonel Shalom Eisner, who had been set to be kicked out of the army.

Eisner had hit a foreign anarchist in the face, who was trying to block Highway 90 in the Jordan Valley. During the 2 hour altercation that preceded Eisner’s actions, one of the activists broke the fingers in Eisner’s hand.

The activists had filmed the April 2012 incident and disseminated a selectively edited video showing Eisner striking uncooperative anarchists with his rifle – something a lot of soldiers probably wish they could do to these foreign provocateurs.

What the film did not show was that before Eisner hit the foreign leftists, other anarchists had broken two of the officer’s fingers, and the scenes of the anarchists using their bicycles to hit and push the soldiers were also mostly cut out.

The court ordered Eisner to serve two months of public service, after which he can remain in his position for a year, instead of being dismissed right away which is what the original plea bargain had stipulated. Eisner was supposed to head up the prestigious Bahad 1 officer’s school in the Negev.

High ranking army officers, as well as the mother of a fallen soldier who was brought to burial by Eisner, praised Eisner for his sensitivity and character.

Hagit Rein, whose son was killed in the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and was brought to burial by Eisner, burst out into tears as she told the military court of Eisner’s sensitivity and involvement with the burial of her son.

At the time, no one was able to retrieve her son’s body which was trapped in the middle of a combat zone in Lebanon. Eisner upon hearing about it, jumped into a jeep, drove out, and brought the soldier’s body back to Israel.

Senior IDF officer Yehkezkiel Agai testified, “Shalom and I served together in the tank unit, I brought him into his current position as deputy commander because he is trustworthy and dedicated to his job. He is like a man who never received a traffic ticket for 40 years and then is suddenly involved in a serious accident.

“There is no question about the qualities of Shalom. There is no problem with his values or behavior. He just make a mistake.”

Sami Turgeman, head of the Southern Command, told the military judges, “As a commander of ground forces, I often have to face officers in positions that they do not like. Eisner willingly took the position as the Jordan Valley division deputy commander which is not convenient from a personal standpoint and for family life. I have no doubt that he is a highly motivated officer.”

However, Nitzan Alon head of Central Command and a long-time thorn in the side of national religious officers such as Eisner, told the court that despite Eisner’s excellent qualities, “I saw professional failures in maintaining control.”

The incident began when 250 anarchists rode their bicycles onto Highway 90, the only highway connecting the southern and northern ends of the Jordan Valley, with the stated aim of blocking the road in an illegal protest.

The division commander was on vacation at the time and left instructions for Eisner to call the police if there was any trouble.

Eisner had instead decided to deal with the protesters himself.

Anarchists struggled with the soldiers, and some of them were also “bumping” their bicycles into the IDF soldiers as a “non-violent” provocation. With two broken fingers, Eisner’s patience ran out when one of the protesters purposely stood in his way as he and his soldiers were trying to clear the demonstrators off the highway.

After the video of the confrontation went viral, Eisner was removed from duty until an investigation was completed.

On the surface, Eisner came out better than expected, because he can return to his present position after two months of public service, and will retire from the army in another year instead of being forced out right away.

Unfortunately the mistake here is that he is being forced to retire at all.

Lt. Colonel Shalom Eisner, who was suspended from duty in April 2012, after striking a foreign anarchist blocking a highway, has reached a plea bargain with the IDF.

Eisner hit the Danish anarchist with his rifle after the agent provocateur purposely positioned himself directly in Eisner’s face, as Eisner was trying to move the anarchists off the road. The anarchist was part of an organized group of 250 anarchists who were blocking highway 90.

Some of the anarchist were also “bumping” their bicycle’s into the IDF soldiers as a “non-violent” provocation.

In the agreement, Eisner will get 2 months of community service without pay. Instead of being discharged from the IDF, he will retire early (preserving his pension), but he won’t be eligible for further promotions.

The well-respected Eisner was supposed to be appointed to head the prestigious Bahad 1 officer’s school, but was instead given a senior position at the Tzeilim army base until this deal was reached.

Unfortunately, the IDF seems to have not learned the two most important lessons from the event, the first is to support your soldiers as they fight the enemy, and the second is that the anarchists immediately dispersed in panic once they realized that the soldiers were prepared to use just a little bit of force to stop them from blocking the highway.

The Palestinian Authority, with direct financing of the European Union and blind acceptance of lies as facts by media, is swallowing up the southern Hevron Hills, a huge area between Kiryat Arba-Hevron and Arad-Be’er Sheva.

The latest chapter in the Palestinian Authority’s re-invention of history is taking place in Susiya, pronounced “Soos-eeya,” located two miles from the old borders of Israel, on the western edge of the Judean Desert that leads to the Dead Sea, and less than half an hour from Be’er Sheva, the capital of the Negev.

The Arab strategy: An Arab family erects a tent, illegally, near the archaeological site of the ancient town of Susiya. As time passes, the tent becomes a makeshift structure, which expands into several structures. With the support of extreme left-wing activists, the ‘ancient’ town of ‘Palestinian Susiya’ is invented, reported the Tazpit News Agency.

“This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback – the ‘ancient Palestinian Susiya’ never existed. It shows up on no records,” Tazpit wrote.

Yigal Dilmoni, deputy director-general of the Yesha Council, told Tazpit, “Fifteen-year-old aerial photos clearly show that there was no Arab village at this site… The Arabs have come for the village of Yatta, and… repeatedly disseminate lies. ”

Last week, the Civil Lands Authority issued approximately 40 stop-work orders against projects funded by the European Union and intended to firm up Palestinian Authority claims to land where they never lived until Jews came to the area in 1983.

In that year, for the first time in 1,500 years, Jews began living in the southern Hevron Hills, setting up a community in nearby Beit Yatir, two miles to the south, and in Susiya, where the old Jewish town existed until approximately the 6th century.

Until 1983, the area experienced zero growth. Hot summers, cold winters, with occasional snow, and the lack of roads and water resources kept people away. Any land that was farmed by Arabs was done during the spring and summer and abandoned after harvest time, until the following year.

None of the land was ever registered as owned by anyone. During the Ottoman Empire, and under the British Mandate, the rulers of Hevron would sit in their living rooms and parcel out lands arbitrarily. That was the extent of “ownership.”

When Jews came to Beit Yatir, the Arabs followed. Three families from Yatta, a city adjacent to Hevron, fled because of family crimes, such as rape, and set up camp on a hill adjacent to Yatir, Their village quickly became known as the “Thieves’ Village,” for obvious reasons. They claim, of course, that they have been living there from time immemorial.

As a resident of Beit Yatir, and a security officer at the time, I and my colleague reported theft after theft to the police –laundry on the clothes lines, tricycles, shoes left outside and anything else that was not nailed to the ground. Further down the road, our moshav’s tractors often were stolen and tracks always led to the Thieves’ Village.

The police, of course, did nothing.

Susiya was established in the same year. No Arab lived there. Nor did they live in the ruins of the old city of Susiya.

But when the Civil Lands Authority last week issued the stop-work orders, the first step towards demolition orders, the left-wing movements and the Palestinian Authority reinvented history.

“The Palestinian village of Khirbet [ruins of] Susiya has existed in the South Hebron Hills at least since the 1830.”

The International Solidarity Movement wrote last week, “The residents of Susiya include more than 30 families, who were all evacuated from their homes in the old Susiya village and forced to relocate 200 meters to the southeast, in 1986,”

It is a lie. They never lived there, not in 1830 and not in 1986 and not in 1996. A handful of Arabs sowed the land in the spring, harvest the crop in the late summer and went back to Yatta. Period.

“Susiya has been the site of creative non-violent resistance for years, resistance that is continually met with brutality,” according to the ISM.

Part of the “non-violent resistance was the cold-blooded murder of my friend Yair Har Sinai in 2001. He was shot in dead in the head and the back by terrorists while, unarmed, he was tending his flock of sheep.

The police and army, of course did nothing for five years, even though his murderers were known.

The same pattern has repeated itself over the past 15 years.

Rabbis for Human Rights has helped the Palestinian Authority destroy Jewish farms. Across the street from our home on Yatir, the Talya family, converts from South Africa, planted and cared for dozens of acres of land for a decade. The leftists moved in one day, ripped everything out, helped the Arabs plant, and won support from the IDF.

Several years, our community’s children along with hundreds of other school students, celebrated Tu B’Shvat by planting planted more than 1,500 saplings on land adjacent to the our regional headquarters. A “rabbi” from the Human Rights group marched in, and announced that the children were illegal occupiers. The next day, the saplings mysteriously disappeared.

Why? Politics.

There is no law in the southern Hevron Hills. There is politics. There are IDF officers who want to advance in the ranks and have to adopt the government policy, which is “malign neglect” of Jews.

As security officer at the time, I was called by the Talya family to come to their farm becuase five Arabs had trespassed. When I arrived, I saw them surveying the land, well within the fence of the Talya farm which is legally zoned for Yatir agriculture.

I called the authorities, and an officer asked me, “What are they doing?”

“They are surveying the land.” I answered. “Today, they survey. Tomorrow, they claim it is theirs, and the next day they plant and build.”

His reply was, ”What do you care? They are not bothering you.”

The government looks the other way, preferring to set its red lines around Efrat and Maaleh Adumim.

Losing control of the southern Hevron Hills is a free pass to terrorists who use the back trails to smuggle weapons from Bedouins in the Negev, as far away as the Dead Sea and south of Arab. Terrorists also take explosives from the area and use the same route to travel freely and wait for the right moment to blow up Jews in urban centers, from Be’er Sheva to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.

The gradual erosion of Israel control over what is supposed to be Israeli-cojntrolled “Area C” has endangered the entire area. Thousands of Arabs have moved in, set up tents and built homes with the funding of hundreds of millions of dollars by the European Union.

Lacking any history of the area, most media swallow up the Arab story, hook, line and sinker.